By Rabindra Nath Sinha
KOLKATA: The main point of interest for the October 6 by-election for the Nagaon Lok Sabha seat in Assam is whether the perfume baron and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) supremo Badruddin Ajmal will be able to resume his innings in Parliament once again. The second poser has to be whether the Congress, which had won the seat in 2024, can repeat its performance. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with its strongman Himanta Biswa Sarma as the chief minister, is not as vocal as it normally is; but its candidate choice has sprung a surprise.
The Nagaon parliamentary constituency, with a large electorate of 18 lakh plus, has been in the news since the delimitation exercise completion in 2023.Delimitation brought about a significant political and demographic transformation, and the net result was that it became a Muslim-majority seat. Three muslim-majority Assembly segments – Samaguri, Rupahihat and Dhing – were added from the erstwhile Kaliabor Lok Sabha seat, while three Hindu-majority Assembly seats – Hojai, Lumding and Barhampur– were shifted to the newly-created Kaziranga parliamentary constituency. The Nagaon constituency now comprises eight Assembly seats; four of which – Dhing, Rupahihat, Lahorighat and Samaguri – are Muslim-majority. The other four – Nagaon-Batadraba, Jagiroad, Morigaon and Raha – are Hindu-majority.
Why this by-election? The Congress victor Pradyot Bordoloi, who had won twice, in 2019 and 2014, changed his jersey apparently at the behest of the Chief Minister shortly before the Assembly polls early this year, fought as a saffron candidate from Dispur and won. Why the public interest in this by-election and speculation about the outcome has peaked because of the Ajmal factor. The answer lies in the political twists and turns observed in the past 10-12 days. AIUDF, which never denies that its political activity is Muslim-centric, had originally fielded a former student leader, Rejaul Karim Sarkar, for the contest. Just on the eve of the last date for nomination filing, after which the process is over, the AIUDF chief announced that he himself would fight the election. The party’s general secretary, Hafiz Rafikul Islam, when asked about the sudden change in decision, told IPA that the fact of Nagaon having become a Muslim-majority Lok Sabha seat, and that even the Hindu-majority seats have 30,000 to 60,000 Muslim electors, prompted the candidate rejig. Perhaps, more importantly, a large number of voters, including intellectuals and civil society activists, preferred Ajmal as the candidate, in place of Rejaul. In fact, Rejaul himself “told the leadership that in fitness of things and given the post-delimitation ground realities, Ajmal saab ideally should replace him”, Hafiz added.
It deserves mention that the perfume baron, who is a three-term Lok Sabha member from western Assam’s Dhubri constituency, remains active as a lawmaker, as he currently represents the Binakandi seat of central Assam in the Assembly. Some sections of voters are also wondering if the chief minister too had a role in seeing that Ajmal himself is in the fray. Other political watchers rule this out, contending that the AIUDF supremo is politically shrewd and can match Sarma’s machinations.
For the Congress, whose erstwhile candidate Bordoloi had secured the seat in 2019 and 2024, dethroning BJP’s Rajen Gohain, who had represented it from 1999 to 2019, the challenge is to retain the seat. Although it is generous as part of its national electoral politics and policy in giving tickets to minorities, the Assembly election result has acted as an inhibiting factor. Congress put up a poor show, winning just 19 seats in a House of 126 members, and 18 of them were Muslims. Sarma, who has been relentlessly engaging himself in weakening the Congress in Assam, lost no time in targeting it as a party of Muslims.
Therefore, the grand old party could not take the narrative risk of nominating another Muslim face, lest Sarma gets more ammunition to target the Assam Congress. Moreover, a Muslim candidate of the Congress might mean splitting of the minority votes, which possibility may act in the saffron camp’s favour. Congress has nominated Sibamoni Bora, a former legislator.
Assam’s CLP leader, Wazed Ali Choudhury, when asked by IPA about his party’s prospects, told this correspondent: “We are seriously working for our candidate; we are optimistic about getting sizeable Muslim-elector support too. See, the Congress had won the seat in the 2024 parliamentary elections despite the mischievous delimitation exercise. In non-minority majority areas, we are optimistic about mobilising solid support. In the intervening months since the Assembly poll result announcement, the BJP strongman’s credibility has weakened.”
The ruling BJP has put up Devasish Sharma, a bureaucrat, who resigned shortly before the nomination filing date. Sharma’s innings as deputy commissioner at Nagaon and Morigaon, among others, will prove useful in the fight. That is the assessment of the BJP top brass. While this may be a somewhat valid argument, it is equally true that the saffron party failed to find an original in-house, politically mature person who has risen from ranks, as its candidate. Out of Assam’s 14 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress currently holds only Muslim-dominated Dhubri, represented by Rakibul Hussain. Congress had won two, including Nagaon where the winner was Bordoloi, whose defection to the saffron camp precipitated the need for this by-poll altogether.
Academic Abdul Salam is in the fray as a nominee of the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the Trinamool Congress’. There are several other candidates with different symbols. But, given the situation Mamata Banerjee’s ‘TMC’ finds itself in, there is no case for taking Salam’s candidature seriously. Therefore, it’s going to be a three-way fight among AIUDF, the Congress and BJP. Ajmal’s entry simply means it is no more a fight between BJP and the Congress. (IPA Service)
